Great choice! Pittsburgh is one of the most underrated cities in America. It's gorgeous, relatively cheap, and has good food.

There are two nice areas: downtown, and this neighborhood called Oakland which is home to Pitt and Carnegie Mellon universities. These are separated by a pretty rough area, but there are buses between them and I suspect you'll have cars. I think it's generally cheaper to stay in Oakland, which has plenty of restaurants and cool stuff to do by itself.

It's been too long for me to remember the names of specific restaurants. But there are iconic cheese steak places just like in Philly. I remember one place in Oakland where I was able to get cheesesteak with filet mignon on it, and I just ate that for dinner every day.

__________________"Hope...may be indulged in by those who have abundant resources...but its nature is to be extravagant, and those who go so far as to stake their all upon the venture see it in its true colors only when they are ruined."-- Thucydides